I'm also using the new KDE browser Falkon, which has not yet been released. I've written to the developers in hopes of a KDE release in time to make it into Bionic.

On the social front, it's great to look forward to Akademy in Vienna this August! I have hopes that many of our Kubuntu team will be able to attend, for the wonderful face-to-face meetings of Akademy. And this year, a special treat for me, since the great Boud and Irina have invited me to stay at their house for the week before Akademy and then make our way together from their home to Vienna by train. This will remove so much of the pain of travel!

Finally, my genealogy society has suffered greatly while Rootsweb was down. But our website is finally up again at https://skcgs.org and our Facebook presence is undergoing some long-needed maintainance as well. Finally, our Program committee has been doing fantastic work getting interesting speakers. It's fun to go to meetings, fun to do my work on the newsletter, and fun even to go to board meetings! You can't ask for better than that!

Even in my own genealogy research, Ancestry.com is making it easier than ever to find cousins, and more ancestors. Also looking forward to Google Summer of Code if KDE is accepted as an organization. It will be another very busy year!

Thursday, January 11, 2018

Kubuntu recently had to pull our 17.10 ISOs because of the so-called lenovo bug. Now that this bug is fixed, the ISOs have been respun, and so now it's time to begin to reseed the torrents.To speed up the process, I wanted to zsync to the original ISOs before getting the new torrent files. Simon kindly told me the easy way to do this - cd to the directory where the ISOs live, which in my case is cd /media/valorie/Data/ISOs/Next: cp kubuntu-17.10{,.1}-desktop-amd64.iso && zsync http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/kubuntu/releases/17.10.1/release/kubuntu-17.10.1-desktop-amd64.iso.zsyncWhere did I get the link to zsync? At http://cdimage.ubuntu.com/kubuntu/releases/17.10.1/release/. All ISOs are found at cdimage, just as all torrents are found at http://torrent.ubuntu.com:6969/.

The final step is to download those torrent files (pro-tip: use control F) and tell Ktorrent to seed them all! I seed all the supported Ubuntu releases. The more people do this, the faster torrents are for everyone. If you have the bandwidth, go for it!

PS: you don't have to copy all the cdimage URLs. Just up-arrow and then back-arrow through your previous command once the sync has finished, edit it, hit return and you are back in business.

Sunday, January 7, 2018

2017 began with the once-in-a-lifetime trip to India to speak at KDE.Conf.in. That was amazing enough, but the trip to a local village, and visiting the Kaziranga National Park were too amazing for words.

Literal highlight of last year were the eclipse and trip to see it with my son Thomas, and Christian and Hailey's wedding, and the trip to participate with my daughter Anne, while also spending some time with son Paul, his wife Tara and my grandson Oscar. This summer I was able to spend a few days in Brooklyn with Colin and Rory as well on my way to Akademy. So 2017 was definitely worth living through!

This is reality, and we can only see it during a total eclipse

2018 began wonderfully at the cabin. I'm looking forward to 2018 for a lot of reasons.

First, I'm so happy that soon Kubuntu will again be distributing 17.10 images next week. Right now we're in testing in preparation for that; pop into IRC if you'd like to help with the testing (#kubuntu-devel). https://kubuntu.org/getkubuntu/ next week!

The other serious problems with meltdown and spectre are being handled by the Ubuntu kernel team and those updates will be rolled out as soon as testing is complete. Scary times when dealing with such a fundamental flaw in the design of our computers!

Second, in KDE we're beginning to ramp up for Google Summer of Code. Mentors are preparing the ideas page on the wiki, and Bhushan has started the organization application process. If you want to mentor or help us administer the program this year, now is the time to get in gear!

At Renton PFLAG we had our first support meeting of the year, and it was small but awesome! Our little group has had some tough times in the past, but I see us growing and thriving in this next year.

Finally, my local genealogy society is doing some great things, and I'm so happy to be involved and helping out again. My own searching is going well too. As I find more supporting evidence to the lives of my ancestors and their families, I feel my own place in the cosmos more deeply and my connection to history more strongly. I wish I could link to our website, but Rootsweb is down and until we get our new website up......

Finally, today I saw a news article about a school in India far outside the traditional education model. Called the Tamarind Tree School, it uses an open education model to offer collaborative, innovative learning solutions to rural students. They use free and open source software, and even hardware so that people can build their own devices. Read more about this: https://opensource.com/article/18/1/tamarind-tree-school-india.

Wednesday, December 27, 2017

First, as a bystander, I can observe what is happening which nobody else sees, because nobody else is standing exactly where I am. Nobody else has my mix of genes and history and all of what makes me who I am and so I see uniquely.

As bystanders each of us has power we often do not grasp. It is of the moment. We can plan, and prepare so that we are ready to act, intervene if necessary; build up potential energy. While remaining polite, I can step in to help, intervene, participate, engage. I can ACT.

Saturday, August 19, 2017

Accessibility (a11y for short) seems like a niche area of concern for many people. I was thinking about this recently on a hot morning in Spain, walking to the bus station with my wheeled luggage. The sidewalks are thoughtfully cut out for wheelchairs -- and those with luggage! and the kids riding skateboards, and...... the rest of us.

When websites and program output can be parsed by a screen-reader, it is great for blind folks. It is also great for the busy person working and listening, and even for the reader who doesn't have to ignore popup menus and other distractions. In other words, all of us.

There are many more examples, but my point is -- a11y helps everyone. So please - everyone - help KDE focus on accessible software at Randa! Fundraiser is ongoing! Don't pass it by because you think this is niche. Accessible software is better for all.

Tuesday, August 15, 2017

I grew up in a right-wing, Republican family. As I grew to adulthood and read about the proud history of the Republican party, beginning with Lincoln, I embraced that party, even as racism began to be embraced as a political strategy during Nixon's campaign for president. I overlooked that part, because I didn't want to see it. Besides, the Democrats were the party of racists.

However, as I heard about the crimes that President Nixon seemed to be excusing, and that people around me also seemed to excuse, I began to think long and hard about party versus principle. Within a few years, I left that party, especially as I saw the Democrats, so long the party steeped in racism, begin to attempt to repair that damage done to the country. It took me many years to admit that I had changed parties, because my beliefs have not changed that much. I just see things more clearly now, after reading a lot more history.

Today I've seen a Republican president embrace racism, support of the Confederacy, and support racists, neo-Nazis, white nationalists, and the Ku Klux Klan party -- a party his father supported in Queens, New York. Fred Trump was arrested for marching publicly in full regalia, masked, hooded and robed. I've seen no report that he was convicted, although there are pictures of the march and the arrest report in the local newspaper.

Make no mistake about it; today's statement was deliberate. Trump's entry into the political fray was as a leader of the so-called birthers, questioning Barack Obama's citizenship. His announcement of candidacy was a full-throated anti-immigrant stance, which he never moderated and has not changed.

Yes, previous American presidents have been racist, some of them proudly so. But since the Civil War we have not seen -- until today -- a president of the United States throw his political lot in with white nationalists and neo-Nazis. Good people voted for this man, hoping that he would shake things up in Washington. Good people cannot stand by statements such as Trump made today.

It is time for the Congress to censure this President. The statements made today are morally bankrupt, and are intolerable. Good people do not march with neo-Nazis, and good people cannot let statements such as those made today, stand.